Google refuses to take down police brutality videos
updated 10:15 pm EDT, Wed October 26, 2011
Company discloses thousands of user accounts
Google claims to have refused government requests to remove videos showing police brutality, however the search giant complied with the vast majority of inquiries regarding user data. Law enforcement agencies in the US made a total of 5,950 requests for user data between January and June, involving more than 11,000 separate accounts, marking a significant year-over-year increase.
"The increase isn’t surprising, since each year we offer more products and services, and we have a larger number of users," Google wrote in its annual transparency report.
The company only complied with 63 percent of the content-removal requests made by government agencies in the first half of the year, though the 92 total requests involved 757 individual items.
"We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove," Google wrote. The company also refused to comply with separate requests from a local law enforcement agency that was calling to remove videos "allegedly defaming law enforcement individuals."
"We hope this tool will shine some light on the appropriate scope and authority of government requests to obtain user data around the globe," Google added.
